Hello all and welcome to week 2 of Neon Genesis Evangelion! I know a lot has been going on lately, what with the site scare, but don’t worry. A lot of work is going on in the back and we have plans. In the meantime, how about we just jump into this week’s episode of Giant Murder Robots?
Starting off, Evangelion continues to look good. There were some really nice shots this week, both in terms of direction and animation. For the first, I actually want to look towards the aftermath of the opening battle with the Angel. And how Evangelion really sells us on the scale of everything, not forgetting a single detail. What with the guns the size of buildings, and the bullets the size of cars. All with humans in the same shot, it establishes the scale of the conflict really well. For animation, I need look no further than the brutal fight itself. From the destruction of the arm to the almost fluid movements of the Eva. Most of all though, it was the impacts on the skull that sold it for me. Perhaps in the future this will become a bit much, but I think it sets the tone well this early.
Getting in to the actual meat, I have to say, I am happy we actually got the Eva fight. With how the episode opened, showing the brutality and then skipping to the aftermath, I was worried we wouldn’t. However I think Evangelions decision to hold the reveal until the end works well here. As seeing the aftermath, what it does to Shinji and the effects on the citizens, was good. Granted Shinji himself is a bit of an emotionless husk most of the time. Only really reacting to his skull being bashed in. That said, Evangelion did a fine enough job I think showing his… mental issues. How the fight is clearly still affecting him, along with his own prior issues. I just hope we start to see some emotion out of him in the coming episodes, outside of combat at least.
As for the combat itself, it was surprisingly brutal for a giant robot fight. All the movement of the Eva was very organic, which was surprising for a mecha show. More surprising than even that though was just how brutal the fight ended up being. Typically a Mecha show treats its combat relatively clean. Afterall, with giant robots you can get away with a lot, without any actual gore. Cutting off limbs, shooting heads, explosions etc. Evangelion though sort of does away with that, through the organic nature of its mecha. With the tearing of arms and slamming of skulls, visually, keeping the brutal nature of general combat. Should Evangelion manage the mental impact of all of this on its young cast, I think there’s a lot to look forward to. That’s a pretty big if though.
One last thing before I get into the characters, I want to take a deeper look into the world. Like I said before, Evangelion does a good job establishing scale and consequences this episode. A lot of these kinds of shows focus purely on the protagonist and their giant robot war. Neglecting the common folk, the street level view. Evangelion surprised me by giving us this though. Showing citizens considering fleeing to another city, which establishes there are more than just this one. The politics with Shinji’s father Gendo and what he has to do to keep the project running. Even giving us a view of the city from above, where before we saw it only underground. Rising up now that things are safe. It was an unexpected, but pretty great, visual. All in all, I think Evangelion is doing a great job building up its world so far.
Onto the characters, we got a good bit of Misato this week. Sure, some of it was fanservicey, but it’s anime in the 90’s and she’s pretty carefree. The big things we got from her though is how she cares. I liked that she acknowledged and called herself out for how she treated Shinji last episode. How she viewed him as a tool in the moment, and whether she likes it or not, she acknowledged it. Because of this, and her time in the house, it makes me think she does actually care for Shinji on some level. Trying to get him to loosen up and feel at home, not living like anything is different now that he is there. Most of all though, it was seeing her encourage him at the end. That while she knows what must be done, she doesn’t like how she treated him.
This leads into Shinji’s seeming identity crisis. As at the end of the episode, was saw the remainder of the fight, and the almost berserk state he went into. All leading to some weird kinda of PTSD after the fight. Meanwhile he also appears to be hallucinating, as his interface with the Eva screws with his mind. Most likely it feels something like his own body, since he felt pain and terror to his arm being ripped off. Perhaps some sort of split identity. As we saw near the end how he saw an eye in the Eva’s face, as if it truly was a living being. Of course maybe it actually is and Gendo is just lying to us all, its some kind of Angel. However that’s far less interesting to me than a possible split personality with Shinji.
So all in all, how was the 2nd episode? Once again, it was good. Im liking where this is going, both character and production wise. I have heard some concerning things about the production in the second half sadly. How budget and time started to become an issue. However until we get there, it’s hard to find many faults with Evangelion. As someone who enjoys Mecha and Seinen series, the opening has been really strong. With just the right mix of “action” to keep the primate in my entertained and “philosophy” to keep the pretentious ass in me happy. Hopefully we will continue seeing this going forward.
